


Two Slow Dancers

by summerpassingby



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: M/M, i just like to think about them in the little moments, oh Ache, on GOD i will make eddie's death hurt worse for myself!! -me writing literally everything i write, richie and eddie can have a little intimacy during chapter two as a treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:13:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27810568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerpassingby/pseuds/summerpassingby
Summary: Richie and Eddie meet in the Derry Hotel the night before... everything
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Kudos: 7





	Two Slow Dancers

It’s not that Eddie expects a knock on the door of his room at the Derry Townhouse tonight, but when it comes the dizzying rush he feels at the two-tap rhythm is Mike Hanlon’s call in miniature: _It was always going to be happen like this_.

Tomorrow he will realize what that means. Tonight he is one of Stan’s blackbirds in September, flying towards warmth he has yet to see but knows is there. It always was and always will be.

He opens the door and his eyes are filled with stars. It feels more like he is fifteen and drunk for the first time off of Wentworth Tozier’s stolen whisky than he is forty and exhausted to the bone but none of it matters because Richie is in front of him either way.

“Rich,” he says. He is flying faster now. He stands back to let him in.

“Hey, Eddie.” Richie’s hands are in his pockets. He doesn’t move. “Should’ve tried the window, huh? For old times’ sake.”

“Good old days.” Eddie’s smile tilts up to one side. “You coming in, or what?”

“Yeah,” Richie says. “Jesus— sorry, I know it’s so late, I just— I can’t believe I spent so long not knowing.”

“I don’t know how I stood it,” Eddie says quietly. “When I went to my aunts’ that one summer… I spent it all thinking about what I was going to tell you when I got back.”

“Yeah, you talked my ear off for a week straight and still called _me_ the Trashmouth. Hypocrite.”

Eddie laughs. “It was a week! You did that my entire life!”

“Oh, God.” Richie looks pale. “In college— I used to sleepwalk to the phone in my dorm. I wanted to call you, Eds. I wanted to—”

Richie squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head. Before he even puts his hand to his mouth Eddie knows he is trying to hold back tears. Eddie’s own eyes well.

“I don’t even know what you looked like then.” Richie’s voice is thick. “And it’s already gone.”

Eddie reaches out for him.

“Maybe so,” he whispers, wrapping himself around Richie. “But we’re here now.”

Richie lets out a sob.

Eddie holds him tighter. He could hold him forever.

“Hush-a,” he says softly. His hand is in Richie’s hair, drawing circles again and again. It is exactly as he imagined. It is as sure a part of himself as the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles. “Hush-a.”

The light is on, Eddie thinks awkwardly. It is too bright for this intimacy. It doesn’t matter. He moves his other hand to Richie’s neck and leaves it there a moment. It feels like he has done this a thousand times before, or some version of him has.

He will do it a thousand more times. Next fall will come as surely as he will take Richie in his arms tomorrow. He will not realize what this means until he is doing it, when it will all come flooding back in another dizzying rush: _It was always going to happen like this_.

Tomorrow Eddie will have to let go. Tonight he stands swaying back and forth, Richie Tozier in his arms. Two men in an empty room, two birds landing. Eddie feels Richie’s heat from his cheeks, his chest.

Richie’s voice carries the weight of a lifetime when he says: “I don’t know what to do, Eds.”

“Keep flying,” Eddie says back. A tear dripping down his cheek makes a home on Richie’s shirt. “That’s all we can do.”

**Author's Note:**

> me to me: why don't you go listen to mitski and then you'll go even more batshit than before
> 
> @astudyinsubtext on tumblr :)


End file.
